The Dover plate. Relief from Copernicus GLO-30; rivers and lakes from USGS NHD; watersheds from the USGS Watershed Boundary Dataset; roads and city limits from Census TIGER 2024.
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5.36 inches of rain fell in two days, the most for this week of the year since records began in 1966. The next wettest, 5.18 inches, fell in 2009.
Dover’s center stands about 70 ft above sea level. Within three miles the land runs from 40 ft to 120 ft, a difference of 80 ft: gently rolling country.
Under the town center the state geologic map shows Castle Hayne Formation; Comfort Member and New Hanover Member, undivided (limestone), from the Tertiary, 2.6 to 66 million years old.
The section below crosses 3 rock units mapped at the surface.
Heights every 0.1 mile from the Copernicus GLO-90 surface model; vertical exaggeration about 64×. The colored band under the surface is the rock the state geologic map shows at the surface, not a picture of what lies beneath.
Limestone. Age: Tertiary, 2.6 to 66 million years old. About 11 mi of the line.
Sand, clay. Age: Cretaceous, 66 to 145 million years old. About 9 mi of the line.
Clay. Age: Tertiary, 2.6 to 66 million years old. About 4 mi of the line.
From the USGS State Geologic Map Compilation (Horton and others, 2017), the states’ geologic maps joined at a common scale.
Heights from Copernicus GLO-90 (a surface model: it includes buildings and tree canopy); summits from USGS GNIS; rivers from USGS NHDPlus HR; rock from the USGS State Geologic Map Compilation.
A raindrop that lands in Dover reaches Pamlico Sound and the Atlantic Ocean by way of Gum Swamp, Tracey Swamp, Mosley Creek and the Neuse: about 85 river miles.
70 miles of the trip are on the Neuse.
Traced down the USGS NHDPlus V2.1 river network from the Census center point of Dover; river miles along the main stem, rounded.
Dover has a humid subtropical climate. Summer afternoons average 91° in July; winter nights fall to about 35° in January. About 53 inches of rain fall in a normal year.
On November 14 Dover normally reaches 67° and falls to 44°. The record high is 82°, in 1993; the record low 23°, in 1976. The most rain on this date, 0.90 in, fell in 1997.
Normals 1991–2020 and records since 1966 at Kinston Ag Research, 10 miles northwest. NOAA, through RCC-ACIS.
